iPad

iOS

Jailbreak

Cydia

Until recently, most studies, surveys, polls, market analysis, and good old fashioned word on the street all suggested the same thing - the iPhone 4 is 2010's biggest attention-getter in the mobile space and, arguably, the most popular and talked-about smartphone ever produced.

But, in recent weeks, the iPhone has seemingly begun to lose its stranglehold on consumers. Based on the latest findings of ChangeWave Research about smartphone preferences, only 38% of prospective smartphone buyers surveyed want iOS on their next smartphone. Relatively speaking, that figure represents a significant 12 point drop from this past June, a month in which the new 4th generation iPhone was unveiled and a whopping 50% of all would-be smartphone buyers said they wanted an iPhone. Although the "freshness" of the 4th gen iPhone release in June likely skewed the results of the survey to the upside, the precipitous decline is noteworthy, nonetheless.

So who is picking up the iPhone's slack? Android. 37% of the survey participants expressed interest in an Android based phone. To date, the narrowing gap in consumer interest between the iPhone (38%) and Android (37%) represents the closest race ever witnessed in a ChangeWave study for smartphone dominance between these two superpowers of the mobile space. As previously, however, the Apple iOS still "leads the industry with 74% of customers who use the iPhone OS saying they’re Very Satisfied." Only 65% of Android OS users, however, report being "Very Satisfied."